FUNDAMENTAL SINNERS

CHRIST IN WINTER: Reflections on Faith from a Place of Winter for the Years of Winter… ©

There are three types of fundamentalists—atheistic, scientific, and religious. They commit the same fundamental sin: if I can’t understand it, explain it, and control it, then it cannot be real.

I call it “sin” instead of just a mistake because sin, at its root, is separation. Sin breaks relationship, with the world, with other people, with our own true selves, and with God. In Christian theology, this fundamental sin is called “original” sin.

It is not evil in itself. But it puts us, our understanding and explanations and control, in the place of God. When that happens, when we become God, all sorts of evil, all sorts of breaking of relationships, become not only possible but inevitable. That is why Paul VanBuren and William Hamilton and other theologians of the 1960s proclaimed “the death of God.” They weren’t saying that God does not exist, but that fundamentalists of all three varieties have taken over the world.

John Robert McFarland

johnrobertmcfarland@gmail.com

Scientific fundamentalists accept that they cannot control the world, but that is only because their understanding is not yet complete. They believe, however, that someday it will be complete. Then they will be able to control thinking, aging, space, whatever. And if it cannot be controlled, they will at least understand why. You see this sort of fundamentalism in the writing of social science fundamentalists like Jared Diamond and physical science writers like Micio Kaku.

The “place of winter” mentioned in the title line is Iron Mountain, in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, where life is defined by winter even in the summer! [This phrase is explained in the post for March 20, 2014.]

I have also started an author blog, about writing, in preparation for the publication, by Black Opal Books, of my novel, VETS, in 2015. http://johnrobertmcfarland-author.blogspot.com/

I tweet as yooper1721.